For the last thousand years, the people of Ardania have had it easy. Past kings have done such a great job at cleaning up evil, they've enjoyed a lasting peace. However, what's good for the people isn't good for the current king. In an effort to conquer some sort of evil, the king's mages summon a demon lord, only the demon proves too powerful and kills the king. As the last remaining heir, its your job to clean up your predecessor's mess.
As king, your life is deemed too important to head out into the wilds and fight monsters. Instead, you are given indirect control over your kingdom and charged with attracting heroes to carry out your dirty work. Of course, most of your bigger heroes are divas, so you'll need to construct buildings and offers quest rewards worthy of their attention.
Everything in Majesty 2: The Fantasy Kingdom Sim revolves around your kingdom's economy. In RTS tradition, you start with a palace and some start-up cash. From there, you need to build trading posts and other revenue-generating structures until you can afford a guild and begin recruiting heroes. Here's where Majesty 2 steps off the beaten path. Rather than building enemy-crushing armies, you need to convince heroes to defend your kingdom by offering bounties. For instance, if a group of zombies is threatening your people, you can offer a reward for clearing out their crypt.
One interesting twist to construction is building costs. Once you build one type of building, the next one of the same type costs a little more. What seems like a major hindrance opens up some strategic depth. You can't mass produce buildings and inflate your economy or defenses, forcing you to think about how to grow your town and economy efficiently.
As interesting as the system is, it doesn't offer much variety in mission types. Sure, you'll tackle all manner of mythical beasts and demons and find yourself faced with unique circumstances, but at the same time, you're really just going through the motions every mission. Though far from a "magic bullet," once you figure out the basics (which doesn't take long), you can settle into a basic pattern for each mission and breeze through the game with little resistance.
